Need help to improve this photo + zone system qnses

[starvingjack]

Hi ppl,

First of all, I've been taking this scene on and off for the past 6 months, with different kind cameras. Finally I had the chance to try it with a 4X5.

Polaroid 110B, f32/15mins
Shanghai 100
Rodinal 1:50, 13.5mins, constant agitation

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l135/yoohoobama/4X5009_edit_2s.jpg

regrettably, the polaroid have no movements, a view camera will be better suit due to the perspective of the buildings, i believe?

However to make do with what i have now, how can i improve the picture?

On a side note, I want to try the zone system,but how did you find your N+- timings?
I presume there's no easier way then to trial and error?

Any help is appreciated! :)

[Mark Sampson]

That picture looks fine. You can level the camera L-R, which will minimize perspective distortion.
There are numerous texts to learn Zone System technique from. They all work; try one and follow it. Many people will have opinions about which to choose; I'll just suggest that you avoid the original Minor White 'Zone System Manual', however, as it's the most difficult to understand. Have fun!

[Ken Lee]

Expose more, and develop less: boost the low values, and subdue the high values.

You might want to explore the forms of long development, called "Stand Development" and "Semi-Stand Development" - where we allow the film "stand" in the developer for a long time with minimal agitation. You can Google the term and learn a lot about it.

Some of the members of this forum are published experts.

[Nathan Potter]

Improvement depends wholly on what you are looking for - and that I don't know. But for me I'd do a couple of things to avoid the high contrast shown here. First I'd divide the exposure: for the shadow area I'd make an exposure at dusk or so in order to capture detail in the shadow areas (shove it around zone two or three). Now leave the camera absolutely fixed in place until dark and do a second exposure (double expose) at a small aperture for the lights. The second exposure should yield good definition of the headlight trails and add some brightness to the higher shadow areas. All this being quite tricky to accomplish. If you then come up with some reasonable estimate of the equivalent brightness range and you can employ some version of variable development as mentioned above then you have a chance of obtaining a full tonal range negative - if that is your intent. But I also do like your version of the scene above. :)

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[ImSoNegative]

I like your image the way it is, very nice

[Bill_1856]

If it's not too extreme, a fair amount of "perspective distortion" can be corrected by tilting your enlarger easel, or easily done in PhotoShop if you're printing digitally.
Continuous agitation will INCREASE contrast.

[ic-racer]

Zone system is a tool to estimate exposure and predict tonal values in the print. Since you have already exposed the negative and made a print, you are way ahead of the approximations the zone system can give you. Now if you want to work backward from your good print and negative to make more pictures of similar subjects zone system could help.

[Robert Budding]

I'm with Ken on this one. Try more exposure to bring out detail in the shadows and raise your mid tones. Compensate for the additional exposure by holding back development to control your highlights. Take several shots and experiment with development times.

[starvingjack]

Firstly, tks guys for taking your time to help!

For me, my ideal final image is to have lots of details in the shadow areas (main building, trees), yet not blowing the exposure for the bridge. For this shot, I could not pull out any more shadow details, I presume I must go earlier the next time, to have the tree's details.

I will try what ken and robert's suggestion and expose for the trees, and dev for the highlights. Been reading a steve mulligan book about this. Just find it a hassle to find my dev times. haha. guess i can't escape it.

I'll try nathan's double exposure too, that seems workable provided I nail my tripod down. haha. Is there a name for this method? Maybe i can find out more about it.

I'm printing digitally and will prolly correct the perspective using photoshop, till i get a graphic view at least. :(

Thanks for all the help again!

[rdenney]

One other trick that might help put a little density in those shadows is flashing the negative. With this method, you expose the negative to an out-of-focus gray card to about Zone 1 (four stops down from your meter reading of that card). That isn't enough to wash out the shadows, but it will move the additional exposure further up the film's response curve, hopefully beyond the toe where you can get some tonal separation.

Also, a big flash might actually be able to expose the closer bank of trees that are in silhouette to Zone 2 or so. It make take a few firings, but with a 15-minute exposure you have time. Just don't do it enough to make it add more than a bit of density to the dark parts.

But I think the best solution is to wait for a more humid evening, and let the humidity spread the light around a bit. That will also add a bit of density to the sky in background as the humidity is illuminated by city lights.

Rick "who would be happy with this image just as it is" Denney

[eddie]

i think that increasing/decreasing your development time by 20% per N difference should get you close.

[starvingjack]

Thanks for all the help guys,

here's my 1st attempt with the zone system, with tips from this thread.
Not very convincing, I'll have to tweak the dev time more accurately.
Any help with the zone system will be appreciated!

Polaroid 110B, f32 / 1 hr
Shanghai 100
Rodinal 1:50, N-3 development, 8mins

I put the upper deck floor in zone IX and the brighter lights in zone III

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l135/yoohoobama/zone001s_2.jpg

What do you guys think?

[Ken Lee]

It can be fun and fulfilling - just to experiment with special methods like stand development, compensating developers, etc. which give us command of extreme dynamic range.

The Zone System and others like it, will help you get what want. Steve Sherman and Sandy King are two experts in this area, whose names come to mind. They both share regularly with others on this forum. Some of their images, quite handsome, encompass subject brightness ranges that would make most of us cringe.

But determining what you want, is a matter of taste.

Sometimes we don't know what we like best, until we explore all the variations, until we actually see it. It's a discovery process.

So go ahead and make a variety of images. See which ones you like best.

[Mike1234]

Two possibilities...

1: If you can leave the camera on a tripod and babysit then you could double expose. Shoot the first exposure in the late evening while there is still some ambient light to expose some shadow detail. The second exposure is taken during full darkness to get the lights and headlight trails. There are two down-sides to this method... (1) baysitting the camera, (2) the possibility of camera movement for the second exposure. The latter may not be a problem if it's minimal and if the two types of detail (cityscape and lights) are completely separated.

2: Time the event such that a 2 or 3 minute exposure will render not only the light and headlight details but also some shadow detail. This can be a bit tricky due to film reciprocity failure. If you know your film this should be very workable, however, and this would be my way of dealing with it.

[Ken Lee]

I like number one. If you have a spot meter, you can place the high values where you want them (they don't change). Wait for the sun to go down, while you meter the low values.

A moment will come when the low values will be just where you want them, before it has gotten too dark outside. During that that brief interval, you can make exposures which require very little special treatment.

Back in the early 1970's, Fred Picker showed me architectural shots he made this way. They were quite beautiful, and required no special handling in the darkroom.

[Mike1234]

Just a note about Ken's method. This will work and can produce outstanding results. However, it's best to make the first exposure as late as possible so the lighting doesn't look odd... you may not want direct sunlight and hard shadows in a scene intended to look very late evening. The other caveat is you need to underexpose the first shot considerably for the same reason mentioned above and so the lights and headlight trails have enough dark space to stand out. You're really just trying to get a little sky color (or detail) and some shadow detail and/or color.

[Brian Ellis]

Firstly, tks guys for taking your time to help!

For me, my ideal final image is to have lots of details in the shadow areas (main building, trees), yet not blowing the exposure for the bridge. For this shot, I could not pull out any more shadow details, I presume I must go earlier the next time, to have the tree's details.

I will try what ken and robert's suggestion and expose for the trees, and dev for the highlights. Been reading a steve mulligan book about this. Just find it a hassle to find my dev times. haha. guess i can't escape it.

I'll try nathan's double exposure too, that seems workable provided I nail my tripod down. haha. Is there a name for this method? Maybe i can find out more about it.

I'm printing digitally and will prolly correct the perspective using photoshop, till i get a graphic view at least. :(

Thanks for all the help again!

If you don't want to do the zone system testing yourself (and having done it myself many times, I don't blame you) check with The View Camera Store. For about $30 (last time I looked) they'll handle the testing for you. I've used them for that twice and was very happy with the resluts. They'll also provide you with more and better information than you would get doing it yourself.

[poco]

Are you sure you really need to stop down to f32 for either of these shots? One of the problems you're butting up against is the extreme contrast negatives you get from very long exposures.